Principles of a Thriller Film

Principles of a Thriller film 

In any thriller film, the producers do many different things to make sure that the audience of the film will know that the film that they are watching is a thriller film. They will do things like using quick jump cuts or cutaways between scenes; they do this so that the audience watching the film’s anxiety and tension will increase throughout the film. They will also usually use low key lighting to enhance the sense of darkness; this should most likely make the viewer have a suspicious feeling about the characters within the thriller movie. Diegetic sounds such as breathing can usually convey to the audience that the character is tense or scared, typically after a shot of someone breathing heavily in a thriller a jump scare tends to happen therefore the audience end up sitting on the edge of their seat and anxious because they feel or know that something frightening will happen. Changes in the shots are added to show the representation of characters feeling or what is going on within the scene, a lot of shots are used to represent the authority and power a certain character has, for example if it was the main villain then they would probably use a low angled shot to make them look bigger and much more powerful. Many principles for thriller movies are usually put in to increase the fear so that it will give viewers the thrill factor.

For example in the thriller film, The Purge, the producers use editing to make the camera shots look like security camera footage, they use low key lighting on the footage to convey suspicion and fear, so that the sense of what or who is lurking in the shadows feeling is set into the viewers watching the film, resulting in them being frightened and anxious, like what many thrillers have in them. I hope to have some of the techniques that were used in this film to be used as some inspiration in my short film.